Though Momma’s Cinderella story hadn’t worked out like in the storybook, I had the briefly held idea that a fairy tale was about to happen in being reunited with my mother. All the happy memories of the beautiful woman who made me candy filled me with wondrous expectation, and for one brilliant flash of time the reality of our being together made me happier than anything I could have dreamt. But those feelings were rapidly overshadowed from almost the first moment that Freddie Triplett bulldozed his way into my life. You would think that I would have had a honeymoon phase with the man who had become Momma’s husband and our stepfather, but he was my enemy from the second I laid eyes on him.

While I had no inkling of the violence he was going to cause in our lives, I must have sensed that he was mean and seemed to take pleasure in hurting my feelings. My hunch was confirmed when he launched the line he loved to throw at me every chance he got, which killed me every time he said it, stirring up the sediment of anger and resentment that would later erupt. Unprovoked, out of nowhere, he turned to me that first time I can recall seeing him and proclaimed in no uncertain terms, eyes blazing and voice blasting, “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!”